Monday, November 23, 2009

Survival of the Fittest

On the 28th of December, my mom and dad will celebrate their 40th year of being marriage.

Well, dad will celebrate it alone this year as he is leaving this Friday. Really sad and frustrating. Thank God for clear phone lines, web cam and the net.

We're OCW kids. My dad started working abroad just a few months after I was born and still does after 26 years.

It was an effort to just to keep the communication lines open as back in the 80s, we didn't have a phone line but my grandmother who lives a number of blocks away does and what they do is that my once a week, my dad would call and will tell our relatives to fetch our mom and he'll call back in 10 minutes.

But since telephony was not available to us 24/7, mom and dad wrote each other letters. Lots of letters on ruled yellowed pads.

Mom had a special desk on which she wrote in, and which I inherited when I took over my eldest brothers' room after they got married.

She wrote week after week after week for a lot of years until finally, PLDT reached our area and we got our own phone.

And then there were the voice tapes!

Every OCW family knows about the voice tapes inserted into the Balikbayan Boxes every holidays. My brothers would push and shove because they want to have their wishlist recorded before the tape runs out of space. Since I was a still a baby then all I ever said was 'goo--gaga'. Whatever.

I just wanted to say how lucky we are that we did not become one of those broken families whose parent or two worked abroad for a living. My dad wasn't a philanderer (Hello Manny!!!!), we all took care of each other because he wasn't around and though we've had financial issues from time to time, then again, which family hasn't, right?